Making the Difference

"Christians of all traditions are discovering that questions of gender are challenging virtually every aspect of belief and practice," writes Elaine Graham, a lecturer in Social and Pastoral Theology at the University of Manchester. In Making the Difference she attempts to answer some of these questions. Part One gives an overview of the topic, specifically by exploring the rise of gender "as an issue within the social and human sciences, and the ways in which commentators in theology and the churches have treated such evidence." Part Two examines the way gender has been categorized in anthropology, biology, and psychoanalysis, and Part Three extends this by looking at particular themes that arise from the study of gender: ways of defining the body, ideas of nature, and male-female differences. The final chapter then summarizes and concludes with a provisional "theology of gender." Here she rejects the idea of "an essential human nature outside the relations and interactions of human culture," and thus with it the notion "of an eternal, pre-existent human nature." While she acknowledges that "it may well be that there is a definitive difference between inhabiting a male body and a female one . . . we must recognize the extent to which our understanding of our bodies, and of ourselves as bodies, is always culturally constructed and mediated."

Well balanced and affirmative of both women and men in this minefield of a topic, Graham is also meticulous and exhaustive in her documentation. Her book presents a splendid overview of current research on the meaning and significance of gender in theology and in Christian practice. --Doug Thorpe